1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a rotary shelf assembly. In particular, this invention involves a rotary, half-moon shaped, shelf storage assembly and a device for prevention of undesired rotation of the half-moon shelf.
2. Prior Art
In an effort to more fully utilize kitchen space, various rotatable shelf units have been produced. There are many different shapes of cabinets for which rotatable shelving units are practical. For example, rotatable lazy Susan assemblies have long been used to provide space in corner kitchen cabinets. Such assemblies are particularly popular because they provide easy access to hard to reach areas of a corner cabinet. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,181,037 and 3,982,800.
Another common kitchen storage problem area is the area within a blind or dead-end cabinet where full frontal access to the cabinet is limited. Such cabinets are located in areas, for example, next to appliances, such as stoves or refrigerators. With this type of cabinet, that portion of the space which is away from the opening of the door frequently becomes unused because of this inaccessibility.
One means for alleviating this problem is by use of a rotational storage device, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,372. This device is drawn out from the cabinet to an extended position on a retractable guidance and support system. This device, however, requires complicated rotational and mechanical features contained both within the base of the shelf and below the cabinet. Such a complicated device is expensive to manufacture, unreliable, because of the large number of parts involved, and does not provide the opportunity for a second such retractable shelf to be located above the first shelf.
For other half-moon shaped drawers, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,146,280 and 3,075,820. Neither of these devices is adaptable for use in a kitchen cabinet.
Although normal rotatable Lazy Susan assemblies can also be used to provide storage space in blind or dead end corners, access to the stored objects on the inside back of the shelf is still limited since the maximum allowable rotation of such a shelf is only 90 degrees. Further, normal Lazy Susan assemblies, even with a detent mechanism, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,800, will not prevent excess destructive rotation within a cabinet by the shelf, which can damage both the shelf assembly and the inside of the cabinet.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a low-cost, uncomplicated, rotary, half-moon shelf storage assembly for installation within dead end or blind cabinets.
It is another purpose of this invention to provide a rotary half-moon shelf storage assembly which will slide out from the cabinet for easy access to all stored items resting on the shelf.
It is a still further object of this invention to restrict the rotation of the shelf by a movement restriction means to prevent damage to the rotary half-moon shelf storage unit or the cabinet.
It is the still further object of the invention to provide a rotary, half-moon shelf storage assembly which can support a plurality of rotary, half-moon, retractable, shelves, each independent in operation from that of the other shelves.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the consideration of the following description. The description along with the accompanying drawings provides a selected example of construction to illustrate the invention.